
Class 

Book. 

CopyrightN!' 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



THE INDUCTIVE 

DETERMINATION OF EDUCATIONAL 

METHOD 



THE 
INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 
OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 



The Standardization and Application of Efficiency Tests to Any of 

the Numerous Factors of Educational Method Which Now 

Dominate Class-Room Teaching Processes or 

Which May Be Made to Contribute to 

Their Greater Efficiency 

BY 

AMBROSE L SUHRIE 

Professor of Pedagosy, State Normal School, West Chester, Pennsylvania 

and 

Special Lecturer in Educational Research in the Summer School of the 

University of Pennsylvania 



INTRODUCTION BY 

A. DUNCAN YOCUM 

Professor of Educational Research and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, 




BALTIMORE, MD. 

WARWICK & YORK, Inc. 

1915 



u^"*' 



/-■N r\ 



Copyright, 1915. 
By WARWICK & YORK, Inc. 



5ci.A4iiia7 
AUG 3 1915 



To 



Lincoln Hulley, Ph.D.. Litt.D., LL.D, 

President John B. Stetson University 

EDUCATOR 
Friend and Inspirer of Youth 



PREFACE 

As a member of a seminar in Education working 
for some time under the direction of Professor 
Yocum at the University of Pennsylvania in the par- 
ticular field of research treated in this monograph 
the writer was much impressed with the need of a 
brief treatise clearly setting forth, in lieu of a series 
of introductory lectures, some of the objects which 
might be pursued and some of the methods which 
might be followed by similar groups of collaborating 
scientists in the field of educational methods. 

It is hoped that this specific purpose may be 
served by Professor Yocum 's brief introduction to 
this study and by my own more fully-developed out- 
lines. 

The complete manuscripts of my more extended 
study in this field will hereafter be available to stu- 
dents in the library of the School of Education at 
the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. 



Ambeose L. Suhrie. 



State Normal School, 
West Chester, 
Pennsylvania, 
September 1, 1914. 



INTRODUCTION 
By A. DUNCAN YOCDM 

University of Pennsylvania 



INTRODUCTION 

Just as surely as Psychology has been transformed 
from a philosophy to a science, Education is work- 
ing over from a deductive to an inductive basis. In 
the field of administration the change has been so 
marked that most educational thinkers no longer 
test a school system through the extent of its agree- 
ment with some theoretical scheme, but rather 
through the presence or absence of those features 
which research finds common to all successful sys- 
tems. To be sure, in most efficiency tests there has 
not been sharp distinction between favorable condi- 
tions, essential factors, and ultimate facts, but, that 
efficiency is being measured in more or less scientific 
fashion, median and graph bear eloquent testimony. 

The science of school administration, however, 
cannot be adequately built up until research and 
experimentation in the field of instruction, both as 
distinct from school supervision and management 
and as a part of it, has developed a science which is 
determining for both course of study and methods of 
teaching. 

Dr. Suhrie's thesis, of which the present mono- 
graph is the introductory part, is a highly useful 
contribution to this latter phase of investigation. 
Most experiments in methods of teaching the various 



b THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

school subjects have been either so loosely conducted 
or imperfectly reported that their results are not 
scientifically valid. While Dr. Suhrie 's mode of pro- 
cedure need not be precisely followed, none of the 
steps which he has enumerated can be safely omitted 
if the results of investigation are to win universal 
acceptance and to dominate the processes of instruc- 
tion with a sterner compulsion than that of tradition 
or authority. 

In emphasizing mode of procedure, however, one 
thing must be held clearly in mind. Mode of pro- 
cedure is merely a means to an end. No precautions 
to ensure unvarying conditions or statistical treat- 
ment of results can make conclusions educationally 
valuable if the thing tested is not an actual factor 
in some specific process of instruction, and if more 
than one factor is varied in the experiment. For 
example, demonstration of the fact that the pupils in 
a particular school grade are predominantly eye- 
minded does not prove that the spelling lesson should 
be mainly visual, but merely points the way to the 
determination of the effect of visual presentation 
upon the memorizing of particular lists of words. 
Such a determination might prove it to be effective 
for polysyllables or words largely unphonetic with- 
out being helpful to phonetic monosyllables, or eco- 
nomical in memorizing, but fatal to comprehension 
or to the development of ear-mindedness and the 
power of carrying over a particular sequence of let- 
ters to all parts of words which have a corresponding 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 7 

sound. That is, experimentation must be preceded 
by analysis which limits the test not only to a par- 
ticular factor in method, but to a particular sort of 
material and a particular kind of efficiency. On the 
other hand, however specific the factor, material, 
and efficiency that are tested for may be, if more than 
one factor is varied, the result is inconclusive. A 
test to determine the effect of visual repetition in 
the memorizing of particular sorts of spelling words 
is valueless if the visual presentation follows an 
oral one without compensation being sought for the 
additional repetitions involved. Any gain in effi- 
ciency may have resulted as certainly from the addi- 
tional repetition of the oral spelling as from the 
additional visual repetition. The problem of method 
is not the comparative efficiency of Miss So-and-So's 
system of teaching reading with that used in some 
other series of textbooks. All methods of teaching 
the same material, or developing the same sort of 
efficiency, must have most factors in common; but 
every little shift of the kaleidoscope puts them in 
new combination and creates a new *^ method" to 
compare with the old. The true problem of method 
is the determination of the relative efficiency of each 
specific factor, whether it is the unique feature of 
some one method or a common factor to all. 

Once determine, for example, the kind of grouping 
by similarity that is most effective for each sort of 
geographical subject-matter, with a view to each 
kind of geographical efficiency, and range all other 



8 THE INDUCTIVE DETEKMINATION 

forms of grouping in the order of their relative effi- 
ciency; perform the same task for all other factors, 
such as form of presentation, interval in repetition 
and gradation, and the problem of efficient geograph- 
ical instruction is solved. The most effective method 
for the majority of pupils can then result from put- 
ting togther into one combination all of the relatively 
more effective factors that are not mutually exclu- 
sive ; the value of any particular method or textbook 
can be determined by the presence or absence of 
such factors ; and the method adapted to a particular 
individual can be chosen through the use of the most 
effective factors which his personality does not ren- 
der inoperative. 

Complex as this task appears when one considers 
the multiplicity of subjects and variety of subject- 
matter, and the numerous kinds of efficiency and 
factors in method, it is simple when compared with 
the formulation and combinations of such a science 
as organic chemistry. If I can judge from the lim- 
ited response to inquiries I have recently made 
through various professional periodicals, and con- 
stant effort to gather together reports on experi- 
ments in this field, little has as yet been accom- 
plished. Such a system of reports as has been 
planned by the Society of College Teachers of Edu- 
cation, the work of such committees as that recently 
appointed by the Council of Teachers of English, 
and, above all, the multiplication of monographs 
such as this, will sooner or later have the effect of 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 



creating an adequate body of expert educational 
workers for this field of service in which Dr. Suhrie 
and other members of my Seminar have been doing 
pioneer work. A. Duncan Yocum. 



THE INDUCTIVE 

DETERMINATION OF EDUCATIONAL 

METHOD 



The Inductive Determination of Educational Method 



OUTLINE 
I. Introduction. 
11. The Scientific Educational Society. 

III. The University Seminar in Educational Ee- 
search. 

1. General conditions of membership. 

2. Types of specialists needed. 

3. Meetings for round-table discussion. 

4. Division of labor. 

5. Field of investigation. 

IV. The Work of Scientific Experimentation in 

Educational Method. 

V. Outline of Considerations and Suggestions for 
Inductive Determination of Educa- 
tional Method and for Effective use of 
Conclusions. 

1. Formulation of problem for experi- 

mentation. 

2. Selection of laboratory for experi- 

mentation. 

3. Choice of conductor of experiment. 

13 



14 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

4. Development of procedure for experi- 

ment. 

5. Conducting of experiment. 

6. Eevievp- of experiment and preliminary 

report. 

7. Formal report and publication. 

VI. Development of Outline. 

(In which sections designated a, b, and c 
correspond in each case to the two or three 
subdivisions under each of the seven su- 
bordinate headings in outline V above.) 



I. Intkoduction 

Preliminary to a consideration of tlie question of 
procedure in tlie inductive determination of educa- 
tional method, it may be well, for reasons which are 
practical rather than theoretical, to consider the 
agencies through which educational scientists may, 
by combining their efforts, best attain to useful 
scientific achievement. 

II. The Scientific Educational Society 

Schleiermacher thinks that in the very need of 
science there is need of the scientific society. 
Whether or not this be true of science in general, it 
is obviously true of the need which is at once sug- 
gested by any constructive efforts to develop a 
science of education on an inductive basis. Any real 
achievement in the domain of scientific educational 
method must come as the result of wide collabora- 
tion — this because of the complex character of all its 
inter-relationships and the number of contributing 
sciences which furnish much of the data, and because 
of the traditional and unscientific attitude of many 
otherwise scientific men toward this particular 
branch of human interest. 

Conradi has summarized the remarkable contribu- 
tions to the advance of experimental science (see 
article under title ^* Learned Societies and Academies 

15 



16 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

of Early Times ' ^ in Pedagogical Seminary, Vol. XII) , 
in many lines of human interest, made by the collabo- 
rative efforts of the great independent thinkers who 
formed the learned societies of ancient times. His 
conclusions, after an extended study of the subject, 
are that these men and their scholastic successors 
on down through the Middle Ages, when free think- 
ing was proscribed, accomplished more by co-opera- 
tion and collaboration as organized bodies of work- 
ers, often in secret research, than all other agencies 
combined, to advance experimental methods of in- 
vestigation, to keep the idea of finality out of science, 
and to develop the concept that scientific accuracy 
is always relative and never, not even in the domain 
of the pure sciences, absolute. 

The pessimistic philosophy of the East, which 
virtually denied the improvability of the human race 
by the processes of education, dominated the Chris- 
tian world for long centuries after the fall of the 
Eoman Empire. Men thought of education as a con- 
serving art; they did not see in it a dynamic force 
for human betterment. Little wonder, then, that 
the learned societies should have almost completely 
neglected the study of educational data and that 
these data should constitute the latest considerable 
body of facts of intensely human interest to take on 
even the semblance of scientific form. 

It is one of the hopeful signs of the times that 
scientific educational societies are becoming more 
numerous and selective, and that many types of or- 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 17 

ganization have in recent years come into existence, 
and that so many objects, both general and special, 
are pursued (see Alexander's volume on "Teachers' 
Voluntary Associations," Teachers' College, New 
York). These societies, by whatever names they 
may be known, which include among their mem- 
bership groups of individual workers absolutely 
willing to resubmit to scientific test all the premises 
upon which contemporary educational theory and 
practice rest, can do, and, it is believed are doing, 
more than any other equal number of independent 
workers to overthrow the rule of the dogmatists, 
still enthroned in our educational system, whose 
mere opinion, resting on no basis of scientific fact, 
often receives wide acceptance because of successful 
administrative achievement or forceful and dominat- 
ing personality. 

Unfortunately, however, eligibility for member- 
ship in these societies is not, in most cases, clearly 
determined on the basis of scientific training for any 
specific function to be performed in a work of col- 
laboration. Many of these organizations are very 
large and their membership composed, for the most 
part, of the relatively untrained. The chief services 
which such societies can render must, for obvious 
reasons, be to develop a scientific attitude of mind 
toward the investigation of educational problems 
and to disseminate widely a knowledge of the valid 
results of experimentation carried on by smaller 
bodies of more expert educational scientists. To 



18 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

push out the boundaries of scientific exploration in 
the domain of educational interest is the work of 
those who have had broad general training and some 
practical experience in educational research and ex- 
perimentation, and who are organized in groups of 
workable size. 

III. The University Seminar in Educational 
Eesearch 

It is believed that if any substantial, not to say 
rapid, progress is to be made in the inductive de- 
termination of the numerous factors in educational 
method, in the evaluation of their relative impor- 
tance, and in the co-ordination of all these results 
into well-organized educational principles, capable 
of specific application to the procedures of class- 
room teaching, it will probably come chiefly through 
the scientific contribution of such agencies as the 
University Seminar in educational research. With 
the more liberal endowment of universities and 
teachers' colleges for purposes of specific educa- 
tional investigation, with the granting of more nu- 
merous and more substantial working stipends to 
educational scientists of good training, wide expe- 
rience and mature judgment who wish to retire tem- 
porarily from active educational work to pursue, 
with undivided attention, investigations of real sig- 
nificance to educational method, with the better 
facilities which the United States Bureau of Educa- 



OF EDUCATIONAL, METHOD 19 

tion, the State Departments of Education, the Car- 
negie Institution, and other educational foundations 
are providing for the publication and free distribu- 
tion of reports of scientific interest in the field of 
education, it is perhaps safe to predict that in the 
near future these University Seminars in educational 
research will be more numerous, that they will be 
composed of a more selective membership than any 
of the more general educational societies, and that 
they will assemble for more permanent labors under 
conditions more favorable to productive collabora- 
tion than any other body of scientific workers now 
engaged in the solution of problems of scientific edu- 
cational readjustment. 

It is not here contended that the educational in- 
vestigator of widest and most helpful experience in 
educational work and of most complete scientific 
training will always be most readily available for 
membership and participation in the work of Univer- 
sity Seminars for educational research, nor that the 
only important contributions will come from these 
groups of associated scientific workers. The condi- 
tions are likely, however, to become increasingly fa- 
vorable to both these results. Since the opportunity 
of the University to do constructive educational 
work and to render eminently useful service through 
these agencies must be evident to all who have 
caught the scientific spirit in education, the impera- 
tive duty of the University authorities to adopt a 
policy and to formulate a working program ought 



20 THE INDUCTIVE DETEBMINATION 

to be equally obvious. Any effort now to formulate 
such a policy and to construct such a working pro- 
gram will be timely, and if it should prove to be only 
suggestive, it may, to that extent at least, be con- 
structive and helpful. It is, therefore, attempted. 
The work of a University Seminar in educational 
research along the line of the specific application of 
general educational i3rinciples to classroom teach- 
ing processes will, of course, be a highly-specialized 
type of advanced graduate study and investigation. 

1. General Conditions of Membership. Member- 
ship in one of these groups which aims "to see the 
devious ways of induction" in a very difficult field of 
investigation and to make a real contribution to the 
science of educational method should presuppose 
and be conditioned on a broad knowledge of the gen- 
eral sciences, a thorough training, on the inductive 
basis, in general, genetic, and educational psychology, 
some practical experience in teaching under ordi- 
nary classroom conditions, a good general knowl- 
edge of the theories underlying statistical methods, 
together with some practical experience in making 
statistical interpretations, and a familiar acquaint- 
ance with such approved scientific study in the field 
of inductive educational method as have been pub- 
lished. This much training ought to be considered 
a minimum prerequisite on the part of any who de- 
sire to participate intelligently and profitably in 
the labors of the group, and to contribute to its 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 21 

scientific achievement. With less than this the mem- 
bers of such a group of research workers, or asso- 
ciated educational scientists, may not hope to easily 
gain common concepts in a scientific discussion or to 
assist in that minute analysis which is essential to 
the isolation of factors in educational method. For 
them, too, the formulation of the procedures neces- 
sary to a scientific test or the framing of valid con- 
clusions on the basis of data collected must be out of 
the question. 

2. Types of Specialists Needed. It is believed 
that in something like exact proportion to the de- 
gree in which a seminar contemplating research in 
educational method can be recruited from scientific 
workers whose technical training has, at least in 
some one direction, gone beyond these minimum gen- 
eral requirements may it hope to push investigations 
further than anything yet attempted, and, by refin- 
ing the analysis of the factors of method and better 
controlling the conditions of experimentation, to 
overthrow existing inefficient practice or to modify 
it or to give complete confirmation to the tentative 
conclusions now held as the outcome of experiments 
made and results published. 

A good working group, in whose discussions all may 
freely participate, must, for obvious reasons, be of 
limited membership. The best possible contribution 
which individual members may make to a scientific 
discussion will frequently take the form of perti- 



22 THE INDUCTIVE DETEKMINATION 

nent, timely and well-defined questions or suggestive 
comments. If the group is too large to assemble for 
informal round-table discussion the danger is that 
the interests of science may have to yield place to 
the flow of oratory. In order that the contributions 
of each to the work of the group in its formulation 
of problems preliminary to actual experimentation 
may be technically pertinent, highly analytic, genu- 
inely scientific, and constructively helpful, it would 
seem well — since the group must be limited in num- 
bers — to include in the membership of the seminar, 
whenever possible, men who, in addition to the pre- 
requisite general training enumerated above, rep- 
resent each in turn a high degree of specialization 
in one or more of the sciences from which we get 
important data of educational interest and signifi- 
cance. To illustrate: 

a. The psychologist. The counsel of an expert 
psychologist is indispensable in the analysis of fac- 
tors which contribute to sense perception, to tem- 
porary or relatively permanent recall, and to the 
easy and certain formation of habits as well as to 
the scientific delimitation of a score of other psy- 
chological factors which must be taken into account 
in determining even tentatively whether or not in 
the test of a given procedure in method we are deal- 
ing with a psychological complex. Then, in the 
study of data collected, preliminary to any attempt 
at statistical treatment and interpretation, the ex- 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 23 

pert psychologist may identify atypical students 
whose failure to respond in a normal way and within 
reasonable limits of individual variation to a given 
group procedure, may not condemn the procedure as 
a teaching process for class use, but rather indicate 
that these students need special treatment, and that 
the data gathered by the testing of them should, for 
obvious reasons, not be included in statistics which 
are to be made the basis for conclusions on normal 
classroom methods. Then, too, the expert psycholo- 
gist, by reason of his extensive training in and habit- 
ual use of the inductive method in laboratory work 
in the investigation of many forms of psychic reac-- 
tion, can more readily than most others decide from 
internal evidence to be found in papers submitted 
or in data collected by other means whether the ex- 
perimenter, working under the direction of the semi- 
nar, has really maintained all the conditions of ex- 
perimentation agreed upon in advance as prerequi- 
site to valid results. 

b. The school supervisor. The counsel of an ex- 
pert and experienced school supervisor is indispens- 
able in determining the groups of students or classes 
or schools in which a test may be made and the con- 
ditions under which it may be made with any reason- 
able hope of scientific results at all commensurate 
with the efforts expended upon it. Years of expe- 
rience and close observation of the work of many 
teachers in all of the school grades with widely- 



24 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

differing types of students and under all sorts of 
varying conditions have given him a perspective in 
the teaching processes and a power of ready analy- 
sis of the conditions under which and the extent to 
which an a priori educational principle can be ap- 
plied not possessed by the teacher whose experience 
has been limited to classroom work and certainly 
not possessed by those who have not had any prac- 
tical experience at all in actual teaching. Like the 
trained psychologist, he, too, can give expert opinion, 
based on internal evidence, in papers scored or data 
recorded, as to whether or not varying factors have 
been adequately guarded against in the carrying out 
of the procedures of experimentation. 

c. The sociologist. The counsel of a trained 
sociologist, or social psychologist, may be invaluable 
in locating characteristic types of students for va- 
rious forms of experimentation. He may also point 
out important and characteristic distinctions which 
might introduce varying factors in a given group 
procedure, due to race or social group differences. 
And, in interpretating data collected, his clear con- 
cepts of group types may enable him to formulate 
theories of possible inductions which would not occur 
to the mere statistician with a mass of tabulated data 
before him in the form of crude statistics. And, as 
is often the case with other lines of scientific inves- 
tigation which are dependent upon the possible legit- 
imate uses of statistics, it may happen that his 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 25 

''guess'* as to the correlations which exist will open 
the way to scientific discoveries of real importance, 
and in this case of wide significance to educational 
method. 

d. The statistician. The counsel of an expert 
statistician is indispensable at almost every stage of 
the proceedings. His advice will be definitely help- 
ful in formulating the tests and the procedures of 
experimentation on such a basis that the results may 
admit of statistical treatment and thus yield quanti- 
tative as well as qualitative conclusions. If he has 
participated in the formulation of a test and in the 
working out of a procedure for experimentation and 
has been in close touch with the experiment in prog- 
ress and has followed with keen interest every rec- 
ord of varying conditions favorable or unfavorable 
to the validity of results sought, he, of the entire 
group of scientific workers, will be most likely, by 
reason of the special character of his training, to be 
able to work out all the legitimate conclusions war- 
ranted by the statistical data collected. Upon the 
completeness of this rests the possibility of rapid 
scientific advancement by the statistical method of 
inquiry. The perverted uses of statistics are pro- 
verbial. Unless the scientist who makes interpreta- 
tion of statistical data collected from these tests has 
participated in the formulation of the problem to be 
tried out, there is danger, no matter how thorough 
his technical training may be, that he may make sum- 



26 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

maries not fully warranted by the data simply be- 
cause he does not know the full significance of these 
data from the standpoint of educational method. 

The services of the expert statistician are indis- 
pensable for a better reason than any yet given. The 
higher mathematical calculations involved in the 
working out of correlations, etc., and in the whole 
statistical treatment of data are such as call for the 
labors of a specialist in that line and much would 
be gained in the development of a science of educa- 
tion if these studies in scientific educational method 
could be prosecuted only by groups of collaborators 
all of whose members had had this special technical 
training in mathematical computation. 

These are merely types of specialists — the list is 
not exhausted — who as members of a seminar in edu- 
cational research may, in framing a problem in edu- 
cational method, in deciding upon the procedures of 
a test, and in interpreting the data collected, ren- 
der most valuable services and sometimes give ex- 
pert direction absolutely indispensable to the valid- 
ity of results sought in experimentation. 

Any amount of technical knowledge, training, or 
skill on the part of individuals or the group as a 
whole will not, however, serve the interests of edu- 
cational science if there be any disposition *^to en- 
tertain a proposition with greater assurance than 
the proofs it is built upon will warrant.'^ It is 
believed that the educational seminar whose mem- 
bership is constituted as above suggested on a defi- 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 27 

nitely selective basis, furnishes, in the very nature of 
its organization and of its methods of collaboration, 
the best possible safeguard against an unscientific 
and biased attitude of mind on the part of those 
whose counsels will prevail in the formulation of 
tests in educational method and whose services will 
contribute directly or indirectly to the results 
wrought out and the conclusions arrived at in the 
course of inductive scientific inquiry. Technical 
training in the use of the inductive method and a 
scientific attitude of mind are not, however, sub- 
stitutes for each other. They are complementary, 
and both are alike indispensable to the validity of 
scientific conclusions sought in the test of the factors 
in educational method. Against the bias of individ- 
ual viewpoint, due to limited experience, partial 
knowledge, or personal prejudice, collaboration must 
serve as an effective and constant corrective. From 
what has been said up to this point the conclusion 
is easily drawn that in the judgment of the writer 
the seminar in educational research may be made the 
most effective body of educational scientists to ad- 
vance the boundaries of our definite knowledge of 
educational method, and that it is justified on 
grounds of expediency, economy and efficiency. 

3. Meetings for round-table discussion. In order 
to maintain the continuity of work while problems 
are in process of definition and while procedures for 
experiments are being formulated, it would doubtless 



28 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

be well that conferences of two or three hours dura- 
tion be held at intervals of a week, or not longer than 
two weeks. While the experiments are being made 
it is almost equally important that meetings or con- 
ferences be held frequently, so as to note and make 
full record of all varying conditions which may not 
always be controlled, but which must be taken into 
account as reinforcing or interfering with the valid- 
ity of results. While the data gathered in an experi- 
ment are being analyzed, classified and worked up 
for statistical interpretation, and while the formal 
report on conclusions is being drafted by some in- 
dividual or committee designated to do so, there is 
less need for frequent or prolonged conference un- 
less requested by the person or persons directly in 
charge of this work. The task will be less onerous 
and the final report to the seminar will be less likely 
to need important revision if stenographic notes on 
all previous discussions of any and every phase of 
the investigation are available to the member or 
members designated to draft the report for publica- 
tion. 

The discussions of the seminar in session must 
necessarily be more or less informal, but should not, 
and need not, lack definite direction. The specific 
purpose of the discussions on any investigation pro- 
posed, or being made, may, perhaps, best be accom- 
plished under the leadership and direction of the 
member in active charge of the problem or the ex- 
perimentation. This is sure to be the case when such 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 29 

member is an experienced investigator. All sessions 
may well take on a quiet and judicial atmosphere. 
There must be no dominance of personality to preju- 
dice a decision. Arguments must be freely set forth, 
objections clearly stated and supported, when pos- 
sible, by illustrations from personal experience or 
reference to published scientific authorities, and all 
contentions and objections, well supported and ju- 
dicially weighed, should be freely granted. 

4. Division of labor. As to the division of labor, 
there are several courses open : 

a. The group as a whole may confine its labors to 
the investigation of a single problem, each individual 
member contributing to its delimitation and to the 
formulation of the procedure of the experiment, and 
personally devoting some time to conducting the 
experiment with a group of students or in a number 
of schools — thus enabling the seminar, by the col- 
laborative efforts of all of its members, to utilize 
very large numbers of students in the experiments. 
This, of course, will have a tendency to increase the 
validity of conclusions reached. This method of co- 
operation in the work of experimentation has its ad- 
vantages and its disadvantages, which vary, of 
course, with different types of experiments under- 
taken. 

b. Each individual member of the seminar may 
report on a different investigation, and each may, 
after full discussion of his special problem in the 
seminar, conduct an experiment under the direction 



30 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

of the group, work up the data, and formulate the 
conclusions. 

c. The seminar may resolve itself into a com- 
pany of expert advisers who meet periodically for 
consultation with an investigator who devotes his 
entire time under their advice and direction to the 
investigation of a single problem in educational 
method. 

d. A combination of any two, or of all three, of 
these methods of apportioning the tasks of pro- 
ductive collaboration may be adopted. The expe- 
diency of adopting this plan or that one will be de- 
termined by the personnel of the seminar, by the 
time at the disposal of individual members, and by 
the accessibility or inaccessibility of student groups 
or schools available for, and adapted to, purposes 
of experimentation, as well as by numerous other 
considerations which cannot easily be anticipated. 

5. Field of investigation. As to the field in which 
experiments may be conducted, each seminar has a 
wide range of choice : 

a. It may select some general and more or less 
universally accepted principle of educational method, 
and, with no foregone conclusions as to its scientific 
validity, try it out in a series of tests applied to the 
several school subjects and in the several grades. 
This work, if well done, with a sufficiently large num- 
ber of students as subjects of experimentation, will 
be likely to yield fairly conclusive results of a posi- 
tive or of a negative character. If the results are 



OF EDUCATIONAL. METHOD 31 

positive, then the distribution of results and the 
variation in different school systems, in different 
race or social groups, at different school ages, etc., 
will throw much light upon the conditions under 
which and the extent to which these a priori educa- 
tional principles are in practice applicable. If the 
results are uniformly negative, then the way has 
been opened for the superseding of traditional 
methods by others which will eliminate waste and 
yield a larger degree, if not a maximum degree, of 
educational efficiency; and whether the results be 
positive or negative, if they are at all conclusive 
either way, the reign of the dogmatist in the domain 
of educational method and in the field covered by the 
investigation will be at an end. 

b. The seminar may select all so-called principles 
of method from whatever source derived, which are 
said to have bearing, direct or more remote, on the 
teaching of a given school branch of study— say 
spelling— and formulate the problem of each for 
experimentation. The practical results for scientific 
educational method will be virtually the same as 
those indicated above. 

For practical reasons, it is well that the seminar 
should limit definitely, by some well-defined prin- 
ciple of choice, the field of its investigation. The de- 
velopment of a science of educational method on an 
inductive basis will ultimately involve an approach 
to the general problem from many different direc- 
tions, and the final co-ordination of all results into a 



32 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

scientific unity. This will represent the final stage 
of a process which has been but begun. Until the 
number of educational seminars greatly increases 
and the procedures of investigation come to be much 
better developed, there is little danger of wasteful 
duplication of effort. When a little more substantial 
achievement has been made in this field, the United 
States Bureau of Education or some scientific so- 
ciety, international in its constituency, should serve 
as a clearing-house for the wide publication of such 
scientific discoveries in educational method as have 
been made, and the time may come ere long when 
some such general agency as has been referred to 
may, with propriety, undertake to formulate the 
whole problem of educational method and assign to 
groups of associated scientific workers special fields 
for investigation, to the end that we may ultimately 
have a complete inductively determined science of 
educational method. At the present time, however, 
any seminar group desiring to make an original con- 
tribution to this end has practically a clear field of 
choice for useful service. 

( 

IV. The Wokk of Scientific Experimentation in 
Educational Method 

When a desirable and adequate membership has 
been secured, a principle for the division of labor has 
been agreed upon, and a specific field for investiga- 
tion has been selected, the group is ready to formu- 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 33 

late a problem in method and to work out in confer- 
ence a procedure for scientific experimentation. 
Very little has as yet been done to develop any gen- 
eral or specific formula for experimentation in the 
field of educational method, and there are really no 
good published authorities on the subject. Frag- 
ments of suggestions of the procedures adopted by 
individual experimenters are to be found in the pub- 
lished reports of experiments made in this field. Many 
of these will not furnish safe models for future use, 
since they neither delimit a problem to a single factor 
in method nor adequately safeguard the conditions for 
uniform experimentation with anything approximat- 
ing the complete elimination of varying or disturbing 
factors. Any one of these studies, — or all of them 
taken together — is far from completely suggestive 
of the steps which must be taken in working out, with 
scientific exactness, the test of a difficult or compli- 
cated problem in educational method. Inasmuch as 
every problem open to investigation is closely re- 
lated to many others, and, since every step in the 
procedure of a test is likely to be closely dependent 
on every other one involved in the same piece of ex- 
perimentation, it may be well that a full view of as 
many of these inter-relationships be presented to the 
mind at one time as possible. An outline is, there- 
fore, suggested to indicate roughly what is in- 
volved in delimiting a problem for experimentation, 
in developing a procedure to be followed in conduct- 
ing the test, in making the specific application of 



34 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

this procedure to concrete classroom conditions, and, 
finally, in working up the results for publication in 
such form as will render the conclusions broadly 
significant to educational scientists and clearly in- 
telligible to all who desire to improve their actual 
teaching by bringing their practices into conformity 
with well-demonstrated principles of scientific edu- 
cational method. 

It is not intended that this outline should suggest 
the order of importance of the topics set down for de- 
liberate consideration, nor even the order in which 
they may to best advantage be discussed and de- 
termined ; and it is certainly not intended to attempt 
to make a complete enumeration of all the topics 
which will call for consideration in connection with 
even the simplest piece of experimentation. The 
bare outline, in its briefest form, without any at- 
tempt at development, is here given, so that it may 
be printed in the least possible space for ready ref- 
erence. Some comments in the nature of explana- 
tion and elaboration will follow this. 

V. Outline 

Of considerations and suggestions in connection 
with any investigation undertaken for the inductive 
determination of educational method and also in con- 
nection with the effective use of such conclusions as 
may be reached for the improvement of teaching 
procedures : 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 35 

1. EOKMULATION OF A PKOBLEM FOE EXPERIMENTATION". 

a. Introduction. 

(1) A statement in very general terms of 
some controverted point or of some 
unsolved problem in educational 
method. 

(2) A brief survey of experiments made 
in the same general field for the scien- 
tific determination of the value of fac- 
tors in educational method and a sum- 
mary of results. 

(3) Differentiation of problem proposed 
from any or all others attempted in 
the same general field — or a brief 
statement of reasons for resubmitting 
a problem to test. 

b. Specific statement of problem so ivorded as 
to clearly define the field of the experiment 
and isolate the factor to he tested. 

2. SELECTION OF LABORATORY FOR EXPERIMENTATION. 

a. Grades or groups of pupils selected and a 
statement of reasons for the particular 
choice. 

b. Schools chosen — because of: 

(1) Ideal external conditions. 

(a) General character of student 
body. 

(b) Accessibility to experimenter. 

(2) Co-operation of supervisory officers- 
reasons for assuming this. 



36 THE INDUCTIVE DETEBMINATION 

c. Teachers in charge of grades or groups. 
Selected because: 

(1) They are intelligent with reference to 
controlling conditions of test, in co- 
operation with experimenter or in- 
vestigator. Precautions taken to in- 
sure this. 

(2) They have scientific attitude of mind. 
Reasons for believing this. 

(3) They are professionally interested in 
results of test. 

3. CHOICE OF CONDUCTOR OF EXPERIMENT. 

a. A consideration of each of the following 
agents or any combination of them collabo- 
rating as best adapted to the purposes of the 
experiment and most likely to secure valid 
results. 

(1) The investigator — why or why not? 

(2) The teacher in charge of the grade or 
group — why or why not? 

(3) The principal in charge of a build- 
ing — why or why not? 

(4) The superintendent in charge of a 
system — ^why or why not? 

b. The agent {or agents) selected as deter- 
mined by: 

(1) Ideal desirability. 

(2) Expediency. 

(3) Necessity. 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 



37 



4. DEVELOPMENT OF A PROCEDUKE FOR EXPERIMENT. 

a. Content— should include a full considera- 
tion of: 

(1) Difficulties encountered and plans for 
overcoming them. For example : 

(a) Preliminary tests to find (i) 
the "unknown," (ii) disturb- 
ing factors, (iii) suitable sub- 
ject-matter, (iv) time limits, 
(v) suitable laboratory, (vi) 
etc., etc. 

(b) Preliminary conferences with 
school officials and teachers. 

(2) Dates and days on which instruction, 
drills or tests may best be given. 

(3) Time of day when presentations, drills 
or tests may best be given. 

(4) Subject-matter to be used as basis of 
instruction, drills or tests. 

(5) Details of procedure proposed for ex- 
perimenter or his assistants in con- 
ducting the experiment. For example : 

(a) Copies of instruction to be 
given to helpers with state- 
ment of precautions to be ob- 
served. 

(b) Time limits fixed for periods 
of instruction, drills or tests— 
with precautions to be ob- 
served. 



38 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

(c) Form, order and method of 
giving directions to group to 
be tested. Precautions to be 
observed. 

(d) Eecord to be made of (i) in- 
terruptions to attention of 
class or of any considerable 
number of students by visit- 
ors, messengers, storm or 
rain, accident, discipline, etc.; 
(ii) weather conditions during 
each successive period of pres- 
entations, drills or tests; (iii) 
temperature of laboratory 
(classroom), (iv) condition of 
ventilation, (v) missteps in 
carrying out instructions by 
slight or considerable varia- 
tions in form of a definitely- 
planned procedure, as, for in- 
stance, the inversion of order 
or the varying pronunciation 
of words. 

b. Form — A statement in full detail and in 
order of steps to be taken in the preparation 
and presentation of material of test and in 
full conduct of experiment. 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 39 

5. CONDUCTING OF EXPERIMENT. 

a. Under conditions agreed upon with such 
slight modifications only as are made neces- 
sary by exigencies of a given situation. 

b. Full, detailed and explicit record — at the 
time — of all variations from authorized pro- 
cedure, together with any observations 
which might reveal presence of varying 
factors. 

6. REVIEW OF EXPERIMENT AND PRELIMINARY REPORT. 

a. A full statement by experimenter and assist- 
ants — in person, when possible — to Seminar 

■ of all information, whether recorded or not, 
which has bearing direct or remote upon in- 
terpretation of results and validity of same. 

b. Tentative outline of scheme for tabulation 
of data with suggestions as to possible or 
significant correlations to be found, dia- 
grams to be made, and points to be empha- 
sized in formal report for publication. 

7. FORMAL REPORT AND PUBLICATION. 

a. Preparation of report by individual or com- 
mittee. 

b. Principles governing form of report as de- 
termined by the uses to which it is to be put. 

(1) The abstract. 

(2) The summary. 

(3) The detailed report. 



40 THE INDUCTIVE DETEKMINATION 

c. Review^ criticism and, if need be, complete 
or partial revision by Seminar. 

d. Dissemination of the several kinds of re- 
ports by most effective and economical 
means, so as to hasten the development of a 
science of educational method and favorably 
affect current educational practice. 

VI. Development of Outline 

The sub-heading given to the outline just pre- 
sented is indicative of the uses to which it is intended 
it should be put. A little further development of 
it may make this clearer, and may render it more 
serviceable as a manual, by no means complete, 
but nevertheless quite suggestive and, therefore, use- 
ful to the members of a seminar in educational re- 
search. No separate comment will be made on the 
less significant subdivisions. The separate sections 
designated by a, b and c, respectively, will corre- 
spond to the two or three principal subdivisions un- 
der each of the seven main topics in the outline. 

1. Formulation of a problem for experimenta- 
tion, a. In any meeting of educators where the 
topics appointed for consideration are open to free 
discussion by men representing various types of 
training and experience it frequently happens that 
two successive speakers discussing problems of edu- 
cational method earnestly contend for the superior- 
ity of one procedure or practice over another with a 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 41 

dogmatism and in a form of dialectic which would 
have done credit to the scholastics of the Middle Ages. 
The discussion is usually futile. The literature of 
methodology is largely made up of the same kind 
of interminable controversy over points which have 
never been scientifically determined. Almost any 
one of these is sufficiently important, from the stand- 
point of educational economy, to justify investiga- 
tion. The more important of these will, therefore, 
furnish problems which the seminar may undertake 
to formulate and solve. And until some scientific 
society has formulated the general problem of edu- 
cational method and isolated for separate tests the 
numerous factors involved, or has gone this far 
with a group of educational activities or interests 
closely associated, we can have no better starting 
point in the development of a science of method than 
to undertake, under the most fovorable conditions, 
to settle one of these fruitless controversies. 

Before any considerable amount of labor has been 
expended upon such a problem, however, it would be 
well to make a more or less careful survey of any 
previous contributions made toward its solution and 
scientific determination. If no study covering the 
same specific topic of inquiry has been published, 
or made easily available, then the field is open for 
such a study. If previous experimentation has taken 
place and the results are, from any cause, not con- 
clusive or not well worked out, or if no adequate 
record has been left to indicate conditions main- 



42 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

tained during experimentation, or if the test was not 
applied to a sufficiently large number of pupils, or 
if for any other good reason the validity of conclu- 
sions is called into question, there may be ample 
justification for resubmitting the problem to test 
under conditions which will be likely to measurably 
strengthen the scientific value of results. All this 
preliminary investigation and research may be made 
by some individual member of the seminar who has a 
special interest in the particular problem or by an 
individual or committee appointed by the seminar 
to do so. 

b. The specific, definite and technical statement 
of the problem should then be undertaken. This 
statement must be so worded as to be absolutely 
clear. The certain isolation of a single factor to be 
tested will constitute one of the most difficult, if not 
the most difficult, of the tasks the group of scientists 
will have to perform. This calls, therefore, for the 
best judgment of all, and if the final formulation of 
the problem is the outcome of serious group delib- 
eration, the result, in the course of experimentation, 
will amply demonstrate the superiority of seminar 
collaboration over individual effort. 

2. Selection of laboratory for experimentation. 
a. There are obvious reasons why certain kinds of 
problems in scientific method may best be submitted 
to test in the grades or groups where the results 
may be specifically applicable in the improvement of 
classroom teaching procedures. 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 43 

b. Great caution must be observed by the seminar 
in the selection of a school system which is to serve 
as a laboratory for experimentation. Ideal external 
conditions may not easily be found, but their impor- 
tance to the success of the experiment is all but de- 
terming. A student body should and can be found 
which conforms closely to a normal group type, in 
age, in grade, in social class, in mentality, etc. The- 
oretically, there may be little importance attached 
to the location of a school in which experimentation 
is to take place. Practically, it is a matter of great 
importance that a school be chosen, when possible, 
which is readily accessible to the conductor of the 
experiment. The full and intelligent co-operation 
of the supervisory officers is a matter of first impor- 
tance. It may not be readily assumed. Considera- 
tions, political, professional or personal, may render 
it either inexpedient or impossible for a school prin- 
cipal or a superintendent in a given case to provide 
such conditions as are necessary for successful ex- 
perimentation. 

c. It is conceivable, theoretically, and it is known 
to be true in practice, that in some schools where 
suitable grades or groups are available, where ex- 
ternal conditions are all that could be desired, and 
where complete and intelligent official co-operation 
on the part of supervisory officers is assured, the 
attitude of one or more individual teachers may 
easily defeat the purpose of the experiment. A 
school should, therefore, be chosen in which the 



44 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

teachers who are in charge of the grades or groups 
to be used in an experiment are intelligent with ref- 
erence to controlling and keeping uniform the con- 
ditions of the test in exact conformity to the wishes 
of the experimenter. This presupposes tact and 
good judgment, a keen and alert intellect, power to 
concentrate quietly on almost infinite detail, unfal- 
tering honesty of purpose, unquestioned frankness 
and truthfulness, a scientific attitude of mind and a 
professional as distinct from a personal interest in 
the outcome of the experiment. A year's training 
in such a seminar in educational research as is here 
proposed would doubtless give, in most cases, ample 
assurance that the individual teacher who had en- 
joyed these advantages would be both able and will- 
ing to render thoughtful and intelligent co-operation. 

3. Choice of conductor of experiment, a. The 
considerations enumerated under the first heading 
in this part of the full outline call for careful de- 
liberation on the part of the seminar. In many 
forms of experimentation, conducted with thousands 
of pupils, in scores of schools, it would seem that the 
experimenter is perhaps the only person who is in 
position to adequately safeguard uniformity of pro- 
cedure and of external conditions during the course 
of the experiment. In other forms of experimenta- 
tion the teacher in charge of the grade or group may 
be the ideal person to conduct the experiment, and 
this is especially likely to be the case when the ex- 
periment takes on the procedures of the regular 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 45 

classroom work. There are still other forms of ex- 
perimentation in which the principal or the super- 
intendent is best suited to the task of maintaining 
uniformity; but this is very infrequently the case 
for numerous reasons which are at once obvious; 
and it is usually a matter of doubtful propriety also 
to add to the onerous duties of either of these offi- 
cials any extra burdens even when they are willing 
to render the service. 

b. When the seminar has fully canvassed the 
ideal desirability of this, that or the other person, 
in individual or official relation to the student groups 
who are to be the subjects of experimentation, it 
may often be either expedient or actually necessary 
to agree upon some other agent to carry out the 
procedure. In so far as this arrangement is likely 
to introduce varying conditions, they must be re- 
corded and taken into account in writing up the 
report and in framing the conclusions of the experi- 
ment. 

4. Development of procedure for experiment, a. 
The content of the procedure which it will be seen 
from the outline covers many subdivisions — though 
this outline of them is by no means complete or ex- 
haustive — will call for more extended and detailed 
discussion in the seminar group before the actual 
work of experimentation is undertaken than all other 
points suggested for preliminary consideration. A 
select bibliography in educational psychology will 
be definitely helpful in determining many of these 



46 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

details. Complete stenographic notes on all these 
discussions and complete memoranda of book ref- 
erences and authorities quoted will prove of great 
value in preparing, in full detail, any draft of pro- 
cedure agreed upon, and they may also prove of 
inestimable value later in writing up the report for 
publication. Such notes should be permanently 
filed — if not printed — for the ready reference of 
subsequent investigators of these or closely-allied 
problems in educational method. 

b. The person selected to conduct the experi- 
ment, that is, to apply the procedures agreed upon 
to the concrete conditions of the classroom, whether 
he be a member of the seminar or some other person 
designated to carry on the work, should, in no case, 
undertake the experiment until the seminar has ap- 
proved a full draft of the procedures to be carried 
out. And if the slightest variation is made neces- 
sary by conditions beyond his control, that variation 
should be recorded in detail and reported to the 
seminar for consideration in connection with the 
formulation of conclusions for publication. 

5. Conducting of experiment, a. It frequently 
happens that, notwithstanding the strict observance 
of all possible precautions, unforseen interruptions 
to the progress of an experiment may occur. This 
is even more likely to happen in experiments for 
the scientific determination of educational method 
than in experiments conducted in the laboratory of 
physics or chemistry or physiological psychology. 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 47 

When it does happen, the experience and discretion 
of the person in charge of the experimentation will 
enable him to decide whether or not the interruption 
is such as to render further progress with the experi- 
ment useless. If he decides this in the negative, he 
should make full record of the nature of the dis- 
turbance. If he decides it in the affirmative, it is 
almost equally important that a report to the semi- 
nar should be made and recorded in sufficient detail 
to render the experience useful as a precaution in 
all similar and subsequent experimentation. 

b. In spite of all preliminary seminar discussion 
of the prerequisites of successful experimentation, 
the external conditions of experimentation in the 
field of educational method are as yet so little sub- 
ject to the control of the educational scientist that 
the getting of valid results may be absolutely de- 
pendent, not only upon the care with which he re- 
cords variations from predetermined procedures, 
but also upon his making, at the time, such other 
observations as may throw light upon individual or 
group variation in the character of data gathered 
from a given experiment. It is scarcely necessary 
to suggest also that attention to these details may 
yield important by-products in the form of closer 
analysis of the factors in method not yet completely 
isolated or thoroughly disassociated from others of 
a similar nature, and will, therefore, contribute more 
or less directly to the success of all subsequent ex- 
perimentation in educational method, and, finally, to 



48 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

the development of vital as distinct from merely 
formal tests of teaching efficiency. 

6. Review of experiment and preliminary report, 
a. On such points as those discussed in paragraphs 
a and h under the previous heading, the seminar in 
full session should be given the completest possible 
information. That is to say, the actual conditions of 
experimentation as they existed at the time of and 
throughout the whole period of the experiment 
should be reproduced by oral or by more formal re- 
port in the most concrete and vivid manner possible. 
This report should be given to the seminar before 
any attempt is made to formulate the conclusions of 
the experiment for publication. If anything like a 
general concensus of opinion, supported by the best 
published authority, can be arrived at by the seminar 
as to the probable bearing of each and all of the 
successive steps taken in the course of the experi- 
ment upon the result sought then the conclusions 
ought to carry more weight in the readjustment or 
confirmation of current practice in educational 
method. If no such consensus of agreement can be 
arrived at then any report for publication, stating 
the conclusions justified by the experiment, can be 
framed with due caution as to the purely tentative 
character of these conclusions. There will then be 
no substitution of invididual opinion for scientific 
results. And again, let it be remembered that it is 
against just this that the seminar must sit in un- 
yielding protest if it is to amply justify its supe- 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 49 

riority over the individual worker as an agency for 
real, scientific achievement in the domain of educa- 
tional method. 

If the seminar should decide, after hearing and 
discussing this preliminary report, that the pro- 
cedures previously worked out for the experiment 
were defective or incomplete or faulty, or that, from 
any cause, no clear conclusions would be justified, 
then the experimenter may be spared much fruitless 
labor in preparing a formal report and much expense 
in publishing results which might prove to be not 
only inconclusive, but completely misleading. There 
are circumstances, however, in which the seminar 
might be amply justified in undertaking to formulate 
a clear-cut report on a piece of experimentation 
which, from one cause or another, could not be car- 
ried to successful issue. This may result, if well 
done, in closing up some of the blind alleys of edu- 
cational research, and, in a more constructive way, 
it may be helpful and suggestive in improving the 
procedures for and the control of the external con- 
ditions of subsequent experimentation. 

b. While the procedures of a test are being 
worked out and during the progress of experimenta- 
tion many suggestions will come to those who are 
actively participating in the work as to the pos- 
sible bases of classification of data for tabulation 
and graphic representation; and even a cursory 
survey of the data— in their crudest form— will sug- 
gest to the person who has made the preliminary 



50 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

scores an idea of possible or at least of significant 
correlations to be worked out. These may or may not 
be in line with what the seminar has had in mind 
in the first case as to the method, and in the second 
case as to the object of the study. A full discussion 
of these points in seminar, on the basis of an out- 
line prepared and recommendations made by the 
member or members most familiar with the progress 
of the experiment up to this point, will bring the 
technical knowledge of each type of expert in the 
group to bear directly, and in the most effective way, 
upon the very difficult and laborious task of working 
up results for publication. Such points of discussion 
will likely help the person or persons designated to 
prepare the formal report and draft the final conclu- 
sions to keep the main purpose of the study and its 
direct contribution to scientific method in the proper 
perspective, and to give to the by-products of the 
study — unless they be of absorbing interest and sig- 
nificance — a place well in the background. 

7. Formal report and publication, a. It is be- 
lieved that in the case of the simpler investigations, 
and such as do not require extensive or technical 
mathematical calculations, the report may well be 
prepared, by the individual member who has con- 
ducted, or been directly in charge of, the experiment. 
In all other cases the preparation of the report had 
better be undertaken as a work of collaboration, 
both for the sake of economy of time and efficiency 
of service. The members of such a committee 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 51 

should be chosen because of their special individual 
preparation for each special assignment of work, 
and their technical skill and experience in rendering 
such service. For instance, the member who can de- 
scribe with nicety of diction, with brevity, and with 
absolute clearness as to all the scientific distinctions 
which are called for the details of procedure may 
best undertake this task, and in doing so may make 
an invaluable contribution to scientific accuracy. 
The more difficult mathematical computations and 
correlations may, for obvious reasons, best be 
worked out by the expert statistician if there be one 
in the group ; and inasmuch as this is a purely tech- 
nical piece of work, the group or committee may do 
well to call in the services of such an expert in case 
no member of the seminar has adequate training or 
the time at his disposal to work out the results. 

b. The form of the report may well be consid- 
ered both for the sake of economy in printing and 
because the good uses which any scientific publica- 
tion may subserve depend in some cases upon its 
brevity, in others upon such an orderly or conven- 
tional arrangement as will render it most effective 
for ready reference, and in still others upon the 
complete elaboration of all details of scientific in- 
terest or significance. The abstract, the summary 
and the full detailed report will, each in turn, serve 
a special use which neither of the others can serve. 
If all of these forms of report are included in a mono- 
graph on a single piece of experimentation, they 



52 THE INDUCTIVE DETEEMINATION 

should be arranged in the order named. They will 
probably be prepared in the reverse order. Whether 
they are published separately, or, as above sug- 
gested, they will serve very different purposes for 
different classes of readers, respectively, or even 
for the same readers. 

(i) The abstract, which is the briefest form of 
report, may, when it is to be used in the public press 
or given to teachers for the modification and im- 
provement of method, be written up in terms of valid 
scientific conclusions; if for use in the general or 
more popular educational papers or for book re- 
views, or for any of the purposes of propaganda, it 
should give in the broadest outline a statement of 
the controverted point tried out by the processes of 
experimentation, of the procedures and conditions 
of the test, and of such conclusions as suggest the 
possibility of, and the means for, the improvement 
of current educational practices. The greatest cau- 
tion should always be observed in writing up ab- 
stracts lest general statements, with little or no 
qualification, should be grossly misleading. 

{2) The summary should be in the form of a 
work of ready reference, whether it is published 
under the same cover with the other forms of report 
or whether it is published separately. As an ampli- 
fication of the abstract, it should add to its clearness, 
and as a synopsis of the complete report, it should 
eliminate mere detail. If it be written for a specific 
use, it may place special emphasis upon this, that 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 53 

or the Other feature as the purpose for which it is 
prepared may determine. For instance, as an article 
m an educational journal for a select class of more 
or less scientific educational thinkers, it might be so 
written as to emphasize the scientific aspect of the 
procedures of experimentation and of the condi- 
tions of test rather than other more general and 
more popular features. As a work of general ref- 
erence for such readers as are likely to develop 
through it a special interest in the study of the com- 
plete detailed report or a more genuine interest in 
scientific educational experimentation, it should be 
well proportioned in its emphasis, and should cor- 
respond in sections, chapters, and subdivisions to the 
general report upon which it is based. Here great 
care must be taken to properly qualify all general 
statements, especially such as pertain to conclusions 
likely to affect current educational practice. 

(3) The detailed report should give, in the most 
orderly form for clear comprehension, every fact or 
detail in connection with the whole experiment which 
has direct or remote scientific bearing upon the 
validity of conclusions proposed or upon the future 
development of formulas and procedures, and the 
control of external conditions for the scientific deter- 
mination of educational method. It should include, 
therefore, in the case of any given experiment, all 
such details as are suggested in the general outline 
proposed on page 34 and many others directly ap- 
pertaining to the particular experiment covered by 



54 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

the report. Eacli study will, in many respects, pre - 
sent a case sui generis and no general outline of the 
order of treatment or of the details to be included 
could possibly apply, except in the most general way, 
to reports of the several kinds of investigations con- 
templated. No such outline is, therefore, attempted. 
In many cases the full publication of all this mate- 
rial would involve great expense which need not, 
and perhaps ought not, to be incurred. The full de- 
tailed report, however, should be made available, if 
only in manuscript form, to all well-accredited stu- 
dents of scientific educational method who wish to 
consult the files and records of the seminar. It 
might be well also to keep on file all original data, 
including original papers collected from students, 
stenographic reports of seminar discussions, notes 
on the conditions existing during the course of ex- 
perimentation, etc. This material will have inter- 
est for a very few only, but for such it may prove in- 
valuable, and it may obviate the necessity of much 
duplication of labor as well as save expense in time 
and money when similar investigations are in 
progress. 

c. It is needless to suggest that if any one of 
these three forms of report is to represent the most 
scientific achievement which the seminar as a whole 
is capable of and is to serve the highest purposes of 
science, it should, after the formal draft has been 
prepared by the individual or committee appointed 
to do so, be carefully read and studied by each mem- 
ber of the group separately and then discussed 



OF EDUCATIONAL METHOD 55 

again in a round-table conference, and, if need be, 
revised or in part rewritten before going to the files 
or before going to the press to receive the imprint 
of the seminar. 

d. A few suggestions may be in order as to the 
means by which the results of scientific inquiry into 
educational method may, with the least possible ex- 
pense, be made most effective for the immediate im- 
provement of educational practice and for the 
growth among educational thinkers of a genuine and 
sympathetic interest in the rapid development of a 
full-grown science of educational method. 

Educational papers and the daily press, by the 
free publication of authorized abstracts — not gar- 
bled or distorted or twisted for sensational pur- 
poses — might do much to popularize the efficiency 
test as applied to educational method. The United 
States Bureau of Education might wisely use its 
frank for the general distribution of such approved 
abstracts among weekly newspapers — especially in 
rural communities — just as the present Commis- 
sioner is now doing in the dissemination of other in- 
formation of great interest and importance to the 
general public. 

County and city superintendents of schools might 
interest the more thoughtful teachers directly by 
occasionally incorporating a summary of one of the 
most important of these studies in annual reports 
and in recommendations to teaching groups under 
their immediate official supervision. The United 
States Bureau of Education might, by means of brief 



56 THE INDUCTIVE DETERMINATION 

special bulletins, bring summaries of the best of 
these studies to the special notice of officers of all 
voluntary educational associations and legally or- 
ganized teachers' institutes and thus open the way 
for their discussion at many faculty meetings, gen- 
eral educational conferences and widely influential 
public educational gatherings. Colleges and uni- 
versities might use their special mailing privileges 
for the wide distribution of summaries among large 
groups of interested educational workers. 

When the publication of a full detailed report on 
a given study seems to be merited, either by the supe- 
riority of the report itself as an embodiment of the 
best developed principles and formulas for scientific 
inquiry into educational method, or by the conclu- 
sive nature of the results of the study for scientific 
uses, the expense of such publication should be borne 
by some one of the great educational foundations, 
or by the Federal Bureau of Education, or by some 
one of the national educational associations or scien- 
tific educational societies. These publications should 
then be made accessible in all university and college 
libraries where scientific studies of educational 
method are being made. 



Bibliographical Note 

A well classified list of studies made in this and 
closely allied fields of educational inquiry has been 
prepared by Dr. I. L. Kandel and may be found in 
Bulletin No. 13, 1913, issued by the United States 
Bureau of Education, Washington, D. C. 



67 



